Panel ranks Bay course No.32

COURSE PRAISES SUNG: The view of the Poverty Bay Golf Club course that helps illustrate a New Zealand Golf Magazine story on the courses ranked 40 to 31 in the country. A short description of the attributes of the Poverty Bay course accompanies the photo. Poverty Bay Golf Club website picture

GOLF

POVERTY Bay has been ranked the No.32 golf course in the country on a points system set up by New Zealand Golf Magazine.

Courses ranked 40 to 31 were this week released by the magazine, which compiled the results from 27 “rankers”, who submitted their top 12 courses in the North and South islands.

A story on the New Zealand Golf Magazine web page stated the panel had “nearly 1000 years of combined golf experience, with ‘rankers' from Invercargill through to North Auckland”.

“They are a diverse mix consisting of professional players, experienced amateur players, golf industry professionals and some club players with extensive playing experience here in New Zealand and internationally,” said the story, written by Andrew Whiley.

The rankers were — Phil Aickin, Michael Barltrop, Leo Barber, Robyn Boniface, Barry Brown, Blair Dibley, Stuart Duff, Susan Farron, Simon Forshaw, Peter Fowler, Michael Glading, Doug Holloway, Denise Langdon, Richard Lee, Josh Longney, Dave Mangan, Trevor Marshall, Nigel Merrett, Willie Moore, Grant Moorhead, Tony Nowell, John Sanders, Dominic Sainsbury, Brad Shilton, Duncan Simpson, John Spraggs and Fraser Wilkin.

The ranking system was based on seven criteria, covering the key factors essential in good golf course design and other factors important to the golfers who played these golf courses, the web page story said.

“This includes risk/reward, playability, layout, design, scenic values, conditioning and ambience,” the story said.

“A maximum of five points was awarded for each category, thus the maximum points any course could receive was a total of 35 points.”

The points awarded were totalled and then divided by the number of rankers. The average was then calculated, providing the overall result.

No “ranker” was able to rank a golf course where personal bias or conflict of interest could be a factor; meaning that they could not rank a course where they were a current member, where they were employed, or with which they had any other direct affiliation.

Russley Golf Club came in at No.40 (on 23.01 points) followed by Greenacres (Nelson, 23.3), Invercargill (24.76), Wanaka (25.4), Nelson (25.44), Chisholm Links (25.55), Queenstown (25.59), Cromwell (25.64), Poverty Bay (25.69) and Otago (25.76).

A photo of each golf course, accompanied by a short description, is also on the website.

Poverty Bay Golf Club was the fifth golf club to be established in New Zealand and its “strategic old pines, a mid-course lake complete with resident ducks, thickets of trees and glimpses of the ocean out to Young Nicks Head” made the course scenic as well as a golfing treasure, the story said.

“Poverty Bay is one of the few golf clubs close to a major city where making a tee booking any day of the week is seldom a problem.

“Club members will always make visitors and new members welcome and introduce them to the programme of competitive events that take place, usually on Saturdays, during the season.”